


Cookie Jar

by nufics



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Baby!NU'EST, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23242846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nufics/pseuds/nufics
Summary: Once upon a time, live four babies with their dad (but not really).
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35
Collections: Spring Blessings (Nu'est 8th Anniversary Fic Fest)





	Cookie Jar

It all starts when Aaron wakes up at dawn due to Noah barking and tugging at his shirt. The next thing Aaron knows, he’s in his living room, staring straight at four unique babies—who thankfully, _thankfully_ , have diapers on. 

Aaron should find these babies weird—especially seeing that they’re not exactly humans. A normal person would scream and ask who these cute and unique intruders are—but the appearance of the four munchkins makes him feel weirdly calm, safe even. 

The baby on the far right has bunny ears, skin as fair as Snow White. His round eyes that reminds Aaron of a cherub looks at him with a glint of mischief and unfounded energy—one Aaron seems all too familiar with, yet can’t put a finger on what it is.

The baby next to the bunny ears has fox ears and eyes resembling an innocent fox cub. Aaron watches as the fox baby bops his head over and over again,as if the weight of his head is too much for him as he whines incessantly. His grubby hands keep reaching to the only normal baby with big round eyes—on the farthest left—that reminds Aaron of the stars at night. 

And the baby who’s in the middle of the fox-like baby and the normal baby is the biggest baby Aaron has seen in his life. His ears are covered in white fur and are curved with black thick lines—Aaron realizes that it’s a white tiger cub and not a zebra. The white tiger cub then crawls towards Aaron and tugs at his pants.The next thing Aaron knows, the baby is biting gently and then sucking on his ankle. The white tiger cub grimaces, backs away, then looks straight into Aaron’s eyes. 

“Mammah.” The white tiger cub whined, shaking his head and hitting his fists against the floor.

Aaron weirdly knows that the antic means that the tiger cub realizes that Aaron is not food. He better start giving the cub some food soon. 

Aaron glances at the normal baby to ask for help and the baby nods before plopping on all fours—that’s when Aaron realizes that it’s actually not a normal baby and in fact, a hatchling. A turtle shell is on the baby’s back and a cute, tiny tail is popping out of his diaper as he crawls to the kitchen. Soon, the tiger cub, the fox cub, and the bunny follow in a neat and orderly line—and that’s when Aaron notices their tails. 

A long one, white in color with black stripes on the white tiger cub.

A fluffy long orange one on the fox cub. 

And a round puffy white one that looks like a big cotton ball on the bunny. 

Aaron looks at his reflection on the glass kitchen cabinet and sees that he, too,has animal ears.More like, corgi ears. Before he can panic, Kkotsunnie nudges his leg and that stirs him away from his thoughts. He glances at Kkotsunnie and weirdly, he can hear Kkotsunnie speak to him in his mind. _“You need to prepare their food or Baekho will cry—trust me, you don’t want that to happen.”_

Kkotsunnie then starts walking alongside the baby turtle and Noah by the end of line, as if guarding the bunny. 

_Wait. Baekho? As in, Baekho, Kang Dongho? His brother and the main vocalist of their group?!_

The four unique babies stop their crawling and turn their attention to Aaron with that all-too-knowing gaze with the bunny looking at him as if he’s the dumbest person on earth. 

_“You’re really dumb, Aron hyung,” The bunny says in his mind._

_Minki. The bunny is Minki—their maknae angelic diva._

_“You’d think him almost going into an Ivy League University will make him put two and two together, but no,”_ The fox cub snarkily jokes and Aaron knows that it’s Minhyun. Their dumb smartass brother. 

_“Can we just get food now? I’m really hungry,”_ Baekho whines in his head and Aaron almost laughs, remembering how Baekho would whine like a kid with his no-shit-attitude and impatience when he gets hungry—but the panic is now sinking in. 

His brothers, his bandmates have turned into somehow baby animals and they have a Vlive scheduled for tomorrow. 

Aaron immediately turns to Jonghyun and stares at their leader for help. 

_“Jonghyun.”_ Aaron almost cries out, panic evident in his voice.

The baby smiles at him reassuringly and nods at him. 

_“I know, hyung. We’ll figure it out as always, so don’t worry,”_ Jonghyun says in his head, voice calm and gentle as always. Aaron nods and Jonghyun beams at him. “ _But for now, let’s feed everyone. We can’t have Baekho crying all day.”_

Aaron glances at Baekho and he sees that the tiger cub is tearing up with impatience. Even now, he has no idea what will really happen if Baekho does cry due to hunger. An image pops in his head and he sees Baekho going all Hulk with tantrums. Aaron shivers. 

“O-okay.” 

_“Good.”_ Jonghyun smiles before turning and starting to crawl again with Kkotsunnie next to him, with Baekho and Minhyun following next. 

Aaron initially plans to just stay there rooted in place, but the pointed look from Minki tells him that he better go with them or he’ll be bitten with his bunny teeth. 

_“Listen to Minki-nim, hyung. I won’t be able to protect you from him,”_ Noah warns and Aaron doesn’t need to be told twice. Based on experience, he’s sure that Noah is telling the truth.

*****

It is only after three hours that Aaron finally plops down on the makeshift baby den—that he made, due to Minhyun’s too bossy orders—to rest when he finally gets to ask the one-million-dollars question of “So, what exactly happened?” 

Jonghyun raises his hand, an indication to give him five minutes to finish his baby formula as he kicks Minhyun—who’s still clingy, even more so to Jonghyun in his baby fox form—gently (not really) on the tummy to stop Minhyun from attacking him with his too affectionate and clingy nature. 

Aaron sighs and is about to smack Minhyun on the head but the pointed glare from Minki, who’s lying down with his second bottle of root beer—apparently, Minki in his baby form only drinks root beer—stops him in place. So instead, he pulls Minhyun off from Jonghyun and sits the baby on his lap. Then, his hands start rhythmically rubbing circles on the baby-fox because God-forbid that he’ll make Minhyun go on a garbled-mumbling-slash-yelling spree and wake up a sleeping Dongho—who only fell asleep after being fed two bottles of formula, baby food, and another bottle of formula after doing what Aaron can conclude as baby exercises. 

_“I have no idea what happened either, hyung,”_ Jonghyun starts, his voice in Aaron’s head seems like he’s struggling or something, making Aaron turn to him and see the leader failing to sit up due to his turtle shell.

Aaron immediately reaches for their leader, helping him sit up and Jonghyun thanks him with a smile. _“All I remember is that you called us to meet you here, drunk and all, ate a cookie in your crying state, and then passed out. I was putting you in your bed and the next thing I knew, Minki was screeching and bam—we’re all babies.”_

Aaron frowns and lets go of Minhyun who keeps squirming on his lap. Aaron hears a garbled whine coming from Jonghyun, but as much as he wants to help their leader and save him from getting smothered by Minhyun and getting saliva all over his face,there’s something that really bothers him. 

Last night, yes, he was drunk. Like, too drunk that all he can remember are bits and pieces of it. Aaron remembers going to his usual bar annoyed due to Minki teasing him. The maknae keeps telling him that he should start getting used to not seeing them because sooner or later, he’ll be alone. Why, you ask? Because they’ll have to enlist too like normal Korean men—and that, that is a very touchy subject for Aaron; Minki should have known better not to use that on him. 

But Aaron doesn’t remember calling the four to his apartment, nor does he remember crying and eating a cookie— _wait._

_WAIT._

_Oh fuck._

_Near._

Aaron groans and hits his own head with a pillow. He’s really, really dumb. Actually, he’s not dumb, he’s stupid. Really fucking stupid. 

You see, last night, Aaron met a weird kid in the bar. To be honest, he doesn’t know why he didn’t find the boy weird. Aaron should’ve found the boy weird in a way that there’s an _eight-year-old boy_ in a _bar_. Moreso, he should’ve found Near weird because he was—in Aaron’s drunken state—shimmering the way Edward Cullen shimmers under the sun. 

But that apparently didn’t raise any alarms in his head. Not even the way Near seemed to read his mind and gave him this shining shimmering cookie jar in a bar before telling him that eating one of the cookies would make his wish come true. Again, Aaron didn’t find that weird and instead, he thanked the weird boy and even bought him a root beer float—thank goodness it wasn’t alcohol—then went home and called his brothers. 

Okay. So yes, obviously he did use the cookie and made a wish, but he’s sure that his wish wasn’t them turning into babies. 

_“I think that was due to my wish,”_ Minhyun guiltily says, plopping on the makeshift baby den and letting go of Jonghyun. _“I-I ate a cookie after you made that stupid wish of us not growing old so we wouldn’t leave you and wished the four of us turned into babies so that you’d understand how stupid your wish is.”_

“And yet, you said I was dumb,” Aaron deadpans as Minhyun lets out a loud whine. 

_“At least I didn’t wish for us to be turned into half-animals like Minki did!”_

_“HEY! I TURNED US INTO CUTE BABIES!”_ Minki yells in retort and Aaron groans, rubbing his temple as Minhyun and Minki yell at each other in his mind. 

Aaron feels a soft nudge on his side and sees Jonghyun looking apologetically at him. 

_“Uhm, sorry. I know I shouldn’t have wished for us to talk in each other’s minds, but after realizing that the four of us can’t talk, that’s what popped into my brain.”_

“You should have wished for you to turn back to normal, Jonghyun,” Aaron whines and in his mind, he hears Jonghyun laughing his signature _“hehehe”_. 

_“I know, hyung, but I panicked because Dongho started crying.”_

That—that he can’t blame Jonghyun. 

You see, even though his brothers are somehow still themselves in their baby form, they too are somehow too much like their normal personalities. 

Jonghyun is still Jonghyun, but how Jonghyun can’t multitask in his normal form, it’s far worse in his baby form. Like, literally, Jonghyun has the attention span of a goldfish and the only thing that stays in his mind is how he needs to protect himself from Minhyun. 

Minhyun, obviously, is too clingy. He also now has a too-neat, too-organized, too-clean, and even borderline bossy attitude in keeping everything in sparkly perfection. 

Minki—God—if Minki’s energy when he’s adult Minki was endless, Minki’s energy now is above and beyond that. Their maknae hops and jumps everywhere. He also uses anything as a mic to sing as he wiggles his body unlike any normal baby can usually do. 

But, the worst case from all of the four is Dongho. You see, Dongho is usually the softie among them, the gentle one, the no-shit, and slightly uhm… dumb one too. Apparently, everything turns the opposite way when Dongho turns into a baby, making him go in an all Hulk-tantrum (no kidding) if he can’t have what he wants.

And Aaron stopping Dongho’s crying—due to Minki’s too playful personality of hiding Dongho’s bottle of formula that made him cry for a good twenty minutes—and putting him to sleep are the hardest, _hardest_ things Aaron has ever done in his life.

Imagine a big baby slapping you with his strong arms as he throws a tantrum that all Aaron can do is cry and plead him that he’ll make sure to hide Minki’s root beer formula. It works magic on the tiger cub and calms him down, but Aaron isn’t able to hide Minki’s root beer bottle. Why, you ask? Because even before Aaron tries, Minki is already giving that look that Aaron will die in his hands. 

Aaron takes a deep breath and stares at the three. “Okay, so let’s clear this up. I wished we’d never age, then Minhyun wished that you four would turn into babies, Minki on the half-baby animals, Jonghyun on the telepathy.”

Aaron ticks his fingers off and the three nod. “Okay, so we still have one last wish and it’s Dongho—” 

A large plop on the floor takes all of their attention to Dongho, who’s now awake and has the last cookie in his hand. 

_“This cookie is good,”_ Dongho comments, slowly chewing the cookie. _“But come to think of it, why is Aaron hyung the only adult here? I wish he would be a baby like us.”_

Immediately, three pairs of eyes turn to Aaron in panic, followed by a series of “ _Oh shit”, “Fuck”,_ and _“We’re doomed”._

And before Aaron could say something, he feels his body shrink, his hands turn into grabby ones, and then it’s all dark. 

*****

“Yes, Sir, I’ve checked Jonghyun and Minki’s dorm and they’re not there, nor are Minhyun and Baekho in their place,” Dolly—yes, Dolly is the name of their manager—says through the line as Han Sungsoo lets out a groan. 

“Okay, check Bumzu’s studio again, maybe they’re there,” Sungsoo orders before hanging up.

The CEO sighs as he enters the elevator of Aaron’s building. He pushes the button of Aaron’s floor and leans his head on the wall. He’s worried and wondering where the boys of NU’EST are as they have been out of contact all day, when the boys aren’t usually like that. He doesn’t care whether the boys would miss their scheduled Vlive tonight; all he wants is to find them and talk to them. 

That’s really all he wants. 

Sungsoo steps out of the elevator and sighs. He doesn’t know what happened and what is happening right now. NU’EST aren’t like this at all; Sungsoo knows from years of watching the boys—back when they’re still trainees until two days ago before they suddenly went poof—that this is so out of character for them. He can’t help but be really worried. 

Sure, the boys have tried to run away once before, but that ended in a day and that was when they’re still teens in their pre-adolescent years. But now? NU'EST wouldn’t do that. Sure, he and the boys may have some arguments, but the boys wouldn’t do something as drastic as this, especially when they have a schedule and have to meet the fans that they sincerely love. 

Sungsoo stops by Aaron’s door and punches in the passcode. As soon as he types one digit, he hears Aaron’s dogs barking—not the angry bark when there’s an intruder, but one that sounds like they’re asking for help. He hurriedly opens the door and Noah welcomes him by biting onto his jeans and dragging him by his pants to the living room. 

Before he can even react, he is welcomed by the cries of five babies, with one crying the loudest and screaming “MAMMAH!!!” 

Sungsoo feels his phone ring with a NU’EST song as the ringtone and he immediately answers with his hand shaking as he holds his phone by his ear. He hears Dolly mumbling that the boys haven’t got in touch with their family and before Dolly can ask him what he should do next, Sungsoo beats him to it. “I-I think I’ve found them.” 


End file.
